Pollution in many large industrial cities in the world is rapidly reaching critical proportions. In Tokyo, for example, oxygen "bars" have been opened to provide urban dwellers with whiffs of oxygen as a respite from local pollution. As an alternative, clean air from a remote rural area could be piped into buildings in urban areas to provide fresh country air to the workers of the building. This approach is suggested in GB 2054831 which discloses a system for piping clean, cool air from a mountain to an urban region at sea level, or for piping hot air from sea level to a remote area in the mountains.
The basic problem with this approach is the cost in transporting large masses of air from one geographic location to another. To the very high capital cost of constructing conduits between the locations, and the cost of distributing the air within the city, must be added the operational costs for piping the air.
U.S. Pat. No. 465,298 discloses apparatus for conditioning air in houses by delivering air drawn into a stack at one location by a fan to a manifold connected to various houses, the air being filtered and moistened, heated or cooled, as required. Part of the air is compressed and stored, if desirable, producing a higher pressure for portions of the delivered air. Even so, the operational and construction costs of this approach are high.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved method of and apparatus for piping clean air from a remote rural location to an urban location, in a manner that is more cost effective and efficient than previously known.